Friday, Second Week in Ordinary Time
Friday, January 24, 2025
Second Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Heb 8:6-13/Mk 3:13-19 (Lectionary #315)
So far Mark has only mentioned four disciples of Jesus. But there must have been others following him, because now Mark shows us Jesus making a selection. He “went up the mountain and called the men he had decided on. He appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles.”
Mark says four things about these men: 1. They were to “be with” Jesus. For the importance of this, see Acts 1:21-22: the replacement for Judas had to be “one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us.” 2. They were also going to be sent out (hence the name ‘apostle,” which means “someone sent”). 3. They were to “preach the good news.” And 4. They were to “have authority to expel demons.” That is, they were going to do just what Jesus had been doing.
Mark tells us three things here about the Good News. First, the important thing was that the message should be proclaimed; not that Jesus himself should be the one to proclaim it. In sending out the apostles Jesus was making the proclamation of the Good News independent of his own, human, physical presence. However, in giving the apostles authority to do just what he was doing, Jesus foreshadowed that mystical identification of Christians with himself that is the essential mystery of the Church and the core of St. Paul’s preaching. The truth is, in the members of his body on earth it is Jesus himself who is acting. Second, the message had to be grounded in human, historical contact with Jesus. The apostles were not teachers of an abstract doctrine; they were bearers of a message from Jesus himself. They were a link between the living Jesus and the people to whom they were sent. That is why St. Paul, even though he had direct mystical experience of the risen Jesus, also needed to be approved by the community of “the Twelve” lest in his work as an apostle he should be “running in vain” (Galatians 2:2). Third, the ministry of those sent was, like that of Jesus himself, to give light and life by preaching and by delivering people from any evil influences that held them back from the fullness of graced life (see Psalm 56:19; John 1: 4-5, 8:12).
With the sending of the Twelve, Jesus makes it clear that he is not a Lone Ranger Messiah. The Kingdom is going to be established by Jesus working with, in and through others. So in everything you do, say the WIT prayer: “Lord, do this with me, do this in me, do this through me.”
Initiative: Be the risen Christ. But keep contact with the historical Jesus in his Church.
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